FOR THE SUPREMACY OF THE AIR.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7914, 4 August 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

FOR THE SUPREMACY OF THE AIR.

(This description of a light in the air between a Fokker and a British battleplane, although it took place sorno time ago, i,? typical of what such a combat means to-day.

A watery winter sun was making its' belated appearance from behind the ridges which overshadow the valley of the Ancro as we made our way through the communication trench. High overhead a big British battleplane was cruising around in apparently aimless circles; the drone of its engine echoed faintly through the slowly dispersing mists. Wondering idly what a. battleplane was doing there at nine o'- i >ck in the morning, wo continued our progress, until suddenly from a battery of eighteen-pounders on our right, three short, shrill blasts of a whistle came to our ears. “ Hullo! Boche plane overhead!'’ somebody yelled. Faintly discernible through the morning mists came the enemy. A Fokker, to judge by the clipped-off appearance of its planes, and travelling at a tremendous speed. Little need to order anyone not to move we stood fascinated by the thrill of the fight in the air about to take place. Straight for the huge battleplane came the wasp-like Fokker, and we held our breath in anticipation of the apparently inevitable collision. Oh! something like a of relief came from our throats as sud denly and sharply the German Swung away to the left. Riat-tat, tat, tat. H-, had probably given our man the contents of his machine-gun as lie went, for its muffled voice, resembling nothing so much nsi a child rapping on a door, floated down to us. Br-r-r-r-r, the sharper rattle of the Lewis gun followed immediately, its raucous splutte. drowning the sound of the slower-firing machine-gun of the German. The war in our immediate neighbourhood ceased; batteries firing peripatetic .shots' quietened down, the clatter of tho wagons on the road died away, and we watched in absolute silence the thrilling combat in the sky overhead. What a sight for the gods! Tho paJ« yellow sun creeping steadily higher, and reflected against its light the biplane and the monoplane circling, swooping, banking, tho machine-guns pattering their message of death, a world beneath watching,-with alternating hopes and fears, the progress of the battle. Another fusilade of shots from tho German, then sudden!,-; he disappears from view. “Hurrah! The Allemagne has had enough!” shriek,? a youthful artilleryman. But he fiasn’t; the artful Fokker pilot iis trying to work the cloud trick. Up into the clouds gops our man after him. Presently the pair reappear, the Englishman slightly overhead, liisj Lewis gun crackling away like mad. 'My God! he’.? got him!’’ A simultaneous roar comes from flu? hundred* of watchers os suddenly the Fokke! drops away from our man. Down, down, down; in graceful little spiral* the German comes slowly earthward. “T.s it a trick?” Evervone think* so, for the monoplane looks to be under perfect control, so regular and so neat is it? descent. Our man overhead pays no flieed; he is too old a. birdl to ho caught by such tricks, and flics slowly around overhead, his gun silent, awaiting developments. Closer and closer to earth comes the Fokker. We can now discern the black cro>v» underneath as it eddie? earthward like a sheet oi paper in a gale. Engine trouble, someone near by hazards. It is more than that; the earthly troubles of one German airman are at an end. Nearer and nearer the machine comes, and wo can plainly see the spirals are mucli too regular to be calculated li/ Jiunivn hand. A hundred yards up. the engine flattering and 1 buzzing with an eardeafening sound, and then—- “ O-oh!” a gasp of horror bur.-i from our throats as the monoplane, losing the support of the air, suddenly dived! nose downwards, and. before we could move, crashed to earth throe hundred yardk away. From the adjacent trenches faint rolls < f cheering echoed through the air as we ran to the wrecked machine. Buried in the. wreckage by' the pilot. dead long before ho reached the earth, with bullet-wounds in his head, the strap-' still holding him tight into /hi? sent. A thin trickle of flame enme out from beneath tin* shattered planes. A German 5.9. intent on destroying the dowufallen Fokker and all around it. went whistling overhead. and we departed on our way. Tho German anti-airenai't gunners, released from the spell of the fight, were commencing to shell tin* victorious battleplane, still cruising around. Auxiouslv we watched the fleecy white puffs oi shrapnel bursting; our mail turned homeward, and we heard his mighty engine droning off into the di-tance. “0. PIP," in the “Graphic.”